"Alright Nero, now stand right next to it and say...cheese!"
"CHEEEESE!"
Lilith snapped the photograph as her son stood next to what they made together with a bright smile on his face. It was a horned snow demon that was about as tall as Lilith herself was.
Originally, Lilith was planning on spending the day training her son in how to perform magic, much like they had been doing for the past week. However, when her son heard about the Knee of the Isles and the snowy climate it possessed, he practically begged her to take him on a trip there. Lilith had a rather hard time denying her son when he made that adorable face that was impossible to say no to, so she relented, but made sure that he would at least be able to practice magic while they were there. Additionally, the cold environment could allow her son to focus on ice magic in particular. She made sure that he was prepared for the cold climate before they left, given that he was now wearing an indigo beanie and a blue sweater with a snow monster design in front of it.
As for Lilith herself, she was still wearing her usual attire, but she wore a black overcoat with a white, furry trim which she wore with the hood up. Her normal dress was swapped out for a pair of thick, black pants made for withstanding the cold as well as navy blue snow boots.
"How does it look momma?" Nero asked.
"Looks great my little raven." Lilith replied with a smile, "You want to come and take a look?"
"No, not the picture. The snow demon."
"Oh," Lilith said, "Well, the snow demon certainly looks adorable, but not as cute as you." She then proceeded to scoop up Nero and hug him tight, peppering him with kisses on his cheek. Her son giggled out.
"Momma, stop."
"Sorry sweetie, can't help it when you're just so adorable." Lilith said as she obliged and put her son down before adopting a more business-like, professional tone.
"Now, I'm afraid we'll have to stop playing for now, Nero." She said, "Time to continue with magic training."
"Aww, do we have to?"
"Yes, we do. Now, allow me to show you how to perform an ice spell." Lilith then formed a spell circle and caused a pillar of ice to form in the ground.
"Whoa!" Nero exclaimed with excitement before jumping up and down. "Again! Again!"
Lilith couldn't help but form another spell circle, this time manifesting a small version of Nero comprised of ice and made it wave high to its flesh and blood counterpart, enjoying the delight on her son's face as her magic dazzled him.
"My turn! My turn!" Nero said as he finished jumping before raising his right hand and forming a spell circle of his own. But instead of an ice pillar forming, a blue fire blast came out instead, hitting the single pillar she had created and melting it in almost an instant.
"Dammit." Nero muttered, shocking Lilith.
"Nero, where did you hear that word?" Lilith asked, kneeling down to look her son in the eye.
"You did. You said it when you were cooking."
Oh. The time when she accidentally burned lunch and they had to order takeout.
"Shit." Lilith muttered to herself, before her eyes widened and she realized what she just said, swiftly covering her mouth and hoping Nero didn't hear that.
"Momma, what does shit mean?" No such luck for her unfortunately.
"N-nothing my little raven. Just don't ever say that word, okay. It's bad." Lilith nervously said, trying to turn the situation around.
At her urging, Nero gasped and placed both hands on his mouth before nodding. Good, hopefully this wouldn't happen a second time. Or third, or fourth or...
"Anyway," Lilith said, trying not to think about her son swearing like a sailor, "Let's go over what you did wrong. What were you thinking about when you made your spell circle?"
"About when you set the food on fire." Nero innocently said.
"Okay," Lilith gained a tint of red on her cheeks and continued, "I need you to think about the cold around us. About ice and snow. It'll help you concentrate on creating the same things that I made."
She then placed a hand over Nero's heart and said, "Remember, magic comes from within you. You need to concentrate and draw it out."
Lilith then backed away and watched as her son tried again. He created another spell circle and closed his eyes, scrunching his face in concentration. After a minute, Lilith started to get worried that her son was going to hurt himself in the process and started to move to stop him before ice began to materialize in his hand in the form of a small spike the size of a fist.
He then opened his eyes and exhaled out before his entire face lit up in a smile and showed Lilith the ice spike he made. "Momma, look! I did it!" He then threw it far into the distance before Lilith hugged her son, her face beaming with pride.
It was rather impressive with how quickly Nero could get a hold on the new spells Lilith taught him. Even if he didn't get it the first time, he learned quickly and got a handle on it after the fact. While he did start off apathetic towards learning, he usually became exuberant and dedicated once he began. That youthful exuberance and happy-go-lucky attitude took her back to decades ago. It reminded her of before she became part of the Emperor's Coven and was just living her life, having fun with...
Lilith gently let her son go as the memories started to overwhelm her. All of this was reminding her so much of the good old days with Edalyn growing up. But every time she thought of her sister these days, she had to choke down those memories because they inevitably led to the memory of that horrid mistake she made.
"Momma, are you okay? You're crying." Nero's voice snapped her out of her memories. She cupped her face and saw that tears were falling from her eyes.
Lilith sniffled and wiped her face before putting on a reassuring smile, "It's fine my little raven, it's nothing to be concerned about."
Her son didn't seem entirely convinced, but before he could respond, a load crashing sound snapped their attention to the trees to their left. Lilith motioned for Nero to get behind her as she stood tall and summoned her staff. She could see multiple trees rustling or falling amidst the snowy forest as whatever was responsible was getting closer. She tightened her grip on her staff, preparing to fight.
Whatever it was finally emerged from the forest, revealing itself to be a large quadrupedal creature with white fur. It roared, revealing that its eyes were located on the upper gums of its mouth and that said mouth had blood dripping out.
"A slitherbeast." Lilith whispered to herself, "But they usually ignore anything that doesn't anger them. Why is this one so..."
Just as she asked her question, she saw the answer. On the slitherbeast's tongue was an ice spike that had impaled itself into the beast's mouth. The very same spike that Nero had thrown earlier.
Oh...
"Fuck." Lilith muttered, this time not caring about the profanity her son just heard, "Nero, I need you to run. I'll be right behind you."
"B-but-"
Lilith turned to him and yelled, "Nero, don't argue. I need you to run now!"
"Mom! Look out!"
Just as Nero warned her, Lilith saw the shadow of the slitherbeast envelop them. She turned as fast as she could but found herself ensnared in the monster's grip.
"Nero, RUN!"
As she yelled, the slitherbeast threw her to the side, sending her flying and landing on the snowy ground. As she stopped, she scrambled to her feet and saw her son try to run away.
Before he could get very far though, the monster tried to grab him, only to instead slash him as Nero moved slightly faster than the monster's claw. The act caused Nero to fall to the floor, wreathing in pain as his right arm was bleeding with a massive slash running down the length of his elbow.
The sight made Lilith's blood run cold before it ignited and gave way to unbridled wrath at the sight. Her face contorted to reflect her rage as blue flames enveloped her entire form.
"YOU BASTARD!" She screamed as she blazed toward the slitherbeast, ramming into it and sending it flying away, crashing onto its back as she floated into the air with her staff in hand.
As it tried to get up, Lilith spun her staff around and formed a spell circle from ethereal blue flames, causing an even larger one to form on the ground just beneath the beast as her Palisman, Coronis, unfurled her wings and blazed as intensely as her master's fury. Lilith enveloped her hand in fire as she raised it and closed it into a fist, causing the circle beneath the Slitherbeast to erupt into column of azure flames; the monster screeching in agony as it burned alive.
When the screams died down, Lilith landed on her feet and stood over a patch of scorched land. There was nothing left of the monster but ashes. She then immediately rushed to her son, who was still on the floor and clutching the gash of his injured right arm.
"Nero!" She yelled out as she knelt at his side, "It's alright, I'm here."
Lilith placed one of her hands on Nero's back and bent him upward to steady him and placed her other hand on his injured arm and started concentrating, her hands glowing with magic as she started to heal his wounds. Before she could get very far, however...
SCREEECH!
Lilith momentarily stopped and was drawn to the sound, seeing another slitherbeast had entered the clearing. It had stomped to the ashes of where the previous slitherbeast had been and it sniffed away at them before turning and snarling its fangs directly at Lilith.
Lilith was now fairly certain that she had just killed this one's mate.
Acting as fast as she could, she scooped Nero up and held her staff out as Coronis unfurled her wings once more, prepared to fly away as fast as she could. She then sat Nero onto the staff.
"Nero, use your good arm, hold on as tightly as you can and don't let go." Lilith quickly told her son as he used his left hand to clutch the staff tightly.
"Good," Lilith said as she turned to face the monster as it primed to charge at her, "Now Coronis, get him out of here!"
Coronis' eyes flashed blue as she obeyed her master. Lilith ignored her son's protests as they faded away, signaling that he was safely away from the chaos. While she wanted to go with him and get him to safety herself, she knew that the slitherbeast in front of her was as enraged as she was when its mate struck Nero. It would not stop nor rest until it caught up to and killed them, as it bore the same fury that she had mere minutes ago.
The good news was that she could tell that its rage was directed solely at her, not her son like the mate's was. Meaning she could get him away and keep it busy herself; the beast guaranteed not to go after him.
As the slitherbeast charged at her, she conjured twin fireballs in her hands and threw them at her enemy. Both made impact and made it roar in pain, but it persisted in its reckless assault. As it came close, Lilith jumped out of the way and rolled to her feet as it slowed down to stop itself before turning and snarling at her once more, this time with two patches of bare, burned flesh on its hide.
Lilith stood her ground and waited for the moment the beast would charge again. It roared and began running towards her, where she stood in wait. As soon as it was close enough, Lilith formed a spell circle and thrusted her palm upward. Instead of the desired result (the slitherbeast impaled on a massive ice spike) it stopped itself and just barely managed to avoid stepping into the circle that formed just in front of it as the spire rose up, ending in a jagged point devoid of the creature's blood.
"Dammit," Lilith muttered to herself. Her frustration then gave way to shock as the slitherbeast grabbed the spire and broke it off from the ground before swinging it right at her. She found herself batted to her right and flying to the side. Pain eroded her whole world as she felt her back slam into a tree trunk that she heard crash to the ground as everything around her became fuzzy.
Her vision blurred, making it hard to see. As her sight fully returned, she saw slitherbeast now standing over her; its clenched claw ready to slam down on her and crush her to death. Before she or the monster could do anything, however...
" YOU GET AWAY FROM MY MOMMA! "
The familiar voice screamed out as a massive, ethereal, claw-like arm rocketed at the beast's face and clutched it. The slitherbeast screeched and clawed at the arm as it found itself lifted into the air.
Lilith turned and saw that her son had returned, likely having jumped off her stave to rush to her, but what shocked her the most wasn't his presence...
It was what happened to his arm.
Nero's injured right arm had changed completely. Gone was the normal flesh and blood arm he had before, and in its place was a reptilian claw that extended all the way to his elbow. The palm and fingers of the arm seemed to glow a bright blue as the arm gave way to a crimson hide that was covered in glowing blue streaks.
Much like the glow of his arm, Nero's eyes were also glowing blue, but Lilith could see red irises at the center of his eyes as he glared furiously at the beast in his grip. Lilith didn't think her son was capable of such anger.
Snapping her out of her shock, Nero screamed as he clenched his clawed fist. The ethereal claw did the same, crushing the face of the slitherbeast with a wet squelching noise. Blood coated the spectral claw and what remained of the monster's face as it was unceremoniously dropped to the floor.
The spectral arm vanished and the blood on it dropped to the snowy ground as well, staining the white floor red in small splotches. Nero's eyes ceased glowing as his whole body went limp. He fell to his knees as Lilith fully snapped out of her confusion and rushed to him.
"Nero!" She cried out, grabbing him and holding him before he could fall completely. She hugged him and kept him steady, "W-what was that?"
"Momma..." Nero said, only his voice was weak and sounded drained, "I'm...cold..."
As his voice dozed, Lilith removed her overcoat and wrapped her son in it, intent on keeping him warm. She reached out and called for her staff, wherever Nero had left it, and in moments, it was back in her hand. She seated herself and held on with one hand while holding Nero tightly with the other. On her command, they took off.
They couldn't go home just yet. Lilith needed to make sure her son was okay. She needed to figure out just what had happened to Nero.
Lilith nervously stood outside of Matilda's office, pacing back and forth as the good doctor checked up on her son and examined his arm to see what happened.
She didn't even bother calling ahead or speaking with Matilda's assistant when she arrived. She just barged in and begged her to help Nero as the boy remained cold in her arms. She was incredibly grateful that Matilda wasn't too busy at the time.
Right now, all she could do was wait. Which did nothing to calm her nerves.
Thankfully, she didn't have to wait much longer, as Matilda opened the door and ushered for her to come in.
Lilith almost ran in and saw her son sitting on the table. She rushed to his side and placed her palm on his forehead. His temperature was warm again, and with exception to his new arm, he seemed to be back in full health.
As relief flooded her entire body, she hugged him as tightly as she dared. Nero returned the hug, but it seemed rather half-hearted. When Lilith retracted, she saw that her son was far more focused on his new arm than he was anything else.
"Momma," Nero said as he stared at the appendage, "What's wrong with my arm?"
Lilith looked to Matilda, hoping that she would have an answer.
Matilda just rubbed the back of her head and awkwardly said, "Well, um, here's the thing about that. We honestly don't know what, well, this is."
Lilith, for her part, just stood up and questioned, "What do you mean you don't know? How can you not know?"
"Look," Matilda explained, "Some children, depending on their morphology, usually grow their limbs back even at an early age in the event that they're ever cut off. When we saw this, I wanted to assume the same at first, but it's not regeneration. His entire arm just...mutated, for lack of a better term. We tried taking a blood sample from it to better understand the issue, but..."
She then gestured to the silver tray on the counter, which was full of syringes that had all been bent or broken. "His arm is too durable for anything we have to penetrate it. And when we ran other tests on it..."
She went silent, as if she wasn't sure how to continue. Lilith, now losing her patience, said, "Well, what is it? Out with it!"
Matilda sighed and said, "Okay, so while we were checking his heart rate and the magical output of his valknut, we noticed that his arm was giving off an energy that wasn't too dissimilar to what the valknut gave off."
That made Lilith's impatience disappear as she contemplated what she was told. The valknut was the organ all witches possessed that was connected to their hearts. It was what gave them the energy to perform magic and create spell circles. If she was hearing Matilda correctly, then Nero's arm was akin to a second valknut? How was that possible?
"And that's not the only thing." Matilda went on, "Nero, could you hold your right arm out?"
Nero reluctantly did as he was asked and held out his right arm, which seemed to pulse and glow as Matilda hooked it up to a crystal ball with a red hued glass and a white stand.
"We use these types of crystal balls for verifying the energy output of valknuts. Now, watch..."
Matilda stood back and next to Lilith as they watched the orb give a readout on the energy Nero's arm was pulsing with. The reading simply increased, and increased, and increased, and...
"By the Titan..." Lilith muttered as she watched in awe and apprehension.
The reading on the crystal ball just kept increasing. It was well past the normal output given by most witches at Nero's age and was far past the output of most adults.
Suddenly, the ball started to sputter and short circuit, then...
BOOM!
Lilith raised her arm to her eyes to shield them and saw Nero do the same. When she retracted, she was shocked to see that the orb had exploded. The output of Nero's arm was so immense that the device couldn't properly measure it.
"And the only reason that didn't happen the first time is because we unplugged it before it blew up." Matilda said with a complete deadpan to her voice before continuing in her normal tone, "The most we could gauge about why your son has this is that it could be a genetic mutation from an inherited gene, but we're not exactly sure. Like I said, what Nero has is something we've never truly seen before."
"Is...is it gonna hurt me?" Nero asked.
In response, Matilda walked next to him and ruffled his hair, saying, "Don't worry, little one. Based on what tests we could run, it's nothing life threatening, just...abnormal. Besides, your heart rate is back to normal, your valknut is healthy and producing plenty of energy, and you seem to have made a full recovery. If anything, I'd say you're good to go."
Nero just continued to look at his arm while Lilith's look remained concerned. She wasn't too sure on leaving with questions about Nero's arm unanswered, but as Matilda said, they have no idea just what it was. They said that aside from that, Nero was in perfect health and made a full recovery. Even still, she couldn't shake her concern, but there was very little that could be done by anyone at this point.
"Well, you are the expert, Matilda." Lilith said as she reached out for Nero to take her hand, to which he obliged as he jumped down from the table, "If anything comes up, I'll let you know."
Before they left, Matilda offered Nero a candy-coated roach which she kept reserved for younger patients who behaved themselves, but surprising to Lilith, he wasn't in the mode for one and turned it down. As they returned home, Nero seemed far less jovial than he normally was. He wasn't downtrodden, but he just couldn't take his focus away from his mutated limb, and honestly, neither could Lilith.
It was late at night and Lilith slept in her bed, or at least, tried to, but the events of the day left her shaken and incapable of rest.
She just laid awake, staring at the ceiling of her room dressed in a silk nightgown that was as black as the night sky. Her mind kept focusing on her son, his injuries, his arm's transformation, and oddly enough, Matilda's words regarding it.
She said that a potential source of her son's mutation was likely a result of inheritance. But how? As far as she knew from her family, nothing like what happened with Nero ever popped up in her bloodline once before.
Unless...
Lilith sat up and whispered out, "His father."
Her mind swam back to Belos' words regarding her son, how he had "a powerful heritage in his veins". He was referring to Nero's father, not her.
But who was his father? She didn't know anything about the man she slept with, not even what he looked like, but if her line of thought was correct, then his bloodline was the source of Nero's new arm. The one person who could answer her questions about today's events, and she had no idea who he was or what he even looked like. Still, she had at least one source of information on that end.
Belos.
Based on Belos' words, he is more than likely the only person who knew about Nero's father. And if he could answer her questions regarding him-
"Momma."
Lilith was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of her son's voice. She turned to the door and saw Nero standing in the doorway dressed in his pajamas; his reptilian arm glowing in the dark of her room.
"Nero." Lilith said, "Is something wrong my little raven?"
"I...I can't sleep," Nero started before he looked down and absentmindedly rubbed his right arm with his left hand, "It's all glowy and stuff...and the monster..."
"Oh Nero, come here." Lilith moved to sit on the side of her bed and opened her arms, inviting her son to embrace her. He walked up to her and did so, the reptilian arm feeling odd as it wrapped around her neck, but she still felt her son's warmth all the same.
"Am I...am I a freak now?" Nero nervously asked.
Lilith retracted so she could face the boy, whose eyes looked like they were starting to well up with tears, and said, "No, you're not. What would make you say that?"
"It's this arm," Nero said as he sat in his mother's lap and indicated to his glowing limb, "Are people gonna hate me because my arm is funny?"
Lilith felt her heartbeat stop at what her son said. The last thing she ever wanted was for people to hate her son because of something out of his control, just like...
No, stop it.
She tried to shut the memories up and lock them away, but they still came. Seeing her sister walk away, her transformation into the Owl Beast, and the reactions of the crowds as she ran away.
That's right. Edalyn turned into a monster. All because of you. Because you're a selfish, greedy, entitled little-
Lilith choked her thoughts out. That was then, Lilith. Focus on right now. Focus on your son.
"Nero, listen to me." Lilith's words drew her son's eyes upward as he looked directly at her, "This," She pointed to his arm, "Doesn't make you a freak. Having an odd-looking arm isn't that strange. It may have unique circumstances, but there's nothing wrong with you. I promise."
Her words seemed to have the desired effect on Nero, as he started to look happier and enveloped her in a hug. "Love you, momma."
Lilith smiled and embraced her son again, "Mommy loves you to, sweetie."
The two of them stayed like that for a few minutes before Nero yawned and began snoring in her arms. Rather than carry him back to his room, Lilith decided to let him sleep in her bed for tonight. She gently laid him down and tucked him in, watching him doze away into dream as she took her place next to him.
As she felt herself doze to sleep, she thought back to her questions about Nero's arm and his father. In all likeliness, Belos was the only one who could answer them, but she knew that he wouldn't just give her the answers she was looking for. The day she brings Edalyn in, the day she finally cures her sister, will be the day she gets her answers from Belos.